Silica is a major component of the earth's crust and mantle.
Sand is a form of silica.
The tetrahedral structure of silica makes it analogous in some ways to water.
The two often combine in pleasant ways.
As an undergraduate years ago, I downloaded an image from the web that illustrate this point, but lost information on whose painting it was.
I had posted it below in hopes that someone might provide this infomration.
Thanks go to Simeon Hanks for finding this information.
The painting is called "Day by the Sea" (День у моря) by David Davidovich Shterenberg (b. 1931, d. 2014), and can be found by browsing through some of his paintings
here.